crossoverrpfandomcom-20200215-history
User blog:Julia-B184/Civil War - Part Ten
December 23, 2578 ADVENT Headquarters, Mandalore "And you're sure?" Kylo asked. "I'm positive." Svea Ren affirmed. "Their base is part underground and part built into a mountain. Both areas can launch and receive aircraft, but there aren't any exterior defenses. At least that I could see." "Were you able to get any kind of information on the inside?" "No, only the location of the base." Svea answered. "The dropships I saw launching match the ones we've seen performing all of these raids in our territory." ADVENT's head General, Freja Westerdal, seemed to consider it. "That would be a risky attack. Even when we manage to blow the natural cover off and then the doors, it'll be hard for troops to gain a foothold." "Even so, they only have so many soldiers." Kylo reminded her. "The majority of their organization would be engineers and scientists. If the Mandalorian National Guard doesn't interfere, we'll be putting thousands of ADVENT soldiers against what should be a hundred of their operatives, at most." "But should isn't good enough." Westerdal nodded to Svea. "The Baroness's success in pinpointing exactly where their base is has been invaluable. But not only would throwing troops at the mountain give us countless casualties, it'll begin to sew doubt within the Korps and a huge chunk of the people." "What should we do?" Svea asked. "Do we have any ways to get on the inside?" "We need to try and intercept information, transmissions, anything that can give us an estimate of how many soldiers they have stationed there." Westerdal declared. "Mandalore must have at least some connections with these people if among them are the Arendals. Not to mention other renowned figures that went missing soon before the Civil War." "If they catch onto us and alert the Kingdom, reinforcements will be sent right away." Kylo pointed out. "I'm aware, which is why our staff must handle this matter with the utmost caution." Westerdal looked at him with a slightly expasperated look. "There's no way to sneak one of our own inside the base. A blind full-frontal attack is a last resort at best." She paused, then added, "Another alternative is to capture one of their operatives." "Then we would have to be ready for wherever they hit next, which we have no idea of." Svea sounded doubtful. "We've already improved the readiness of security in our territory." Westerdal reminded them. "If they have a slip-up the same way their very first mission weeks ago was, we might just have our captive." X-COM Headquarters Vahlen watched as the Engineering crews took apart the sword that Slade's agent, Branwen, had left before he went to infiltrate the ADVENT territories. She'd been informed that Qrow would very likely be fighting for them later on, so the doctor had decided that with their limited supply of Beskar (lightsaber-resistant Mandalorian steel) she'd have the engineering team disassemble the weapon and improve it. Bradford walked in as Vahlen supervised the team's efforts. "Are we sure this is a good use for our Beskar?" "Qrow will likely prove to be one of our most valuable combatants." Vahlen remained firm in her decision. "We've already reinforced the Varja handles and chest plating of our operatives, anyhow." "Just feels a bit strange to spend resources on someone who's not on the field yet. For all we know he might be stuck behind enemy lines for a while." He changed his tone after a moment. "But I trust your judgement." "Thank you, Bradford." Vahlen was about to return to her work when she heard Bradford's tablet giving him a notice. "Is that the Spokesman?" "Yep." Bradford sighed. "Wants you and me to the Situation Room ASAP." The two of them left the workshop section of the base, heading towards the lift at the end of the hallway. They stepped inside once the doors opened, hurrying to the Situation Room once they had reached their floor. Bradford strode over to the control terminal for the giant screen, initiating their feed. The screen crackled slightly until the frame of the Spokesman showed itself. "Spokesman." Bradford nodded. "Central Officer Bradford." The Spokesman made no motion. "Doctor Vahlen." "You wanted to speak to us." The Central Officer sat down at the terminal. "Today I bring bad news." The Spokesman did look as if he was sighing. "Despite your recent successes against the ADVENT Coalition this past month, our adversaries gain more ground and more people as we speak. Their propaganda has only accelerated this growth, and while this Spokesman personally believes the X-COM Project will bring this war to a favorable end, the Council of Nations and other involved parties are beginning to doubt." "I..." This took Bradford by surprise. "We haven't been able to progress that far, sir. We've been running operations for less than a month. The most we can do is slow their military down." "X-COM has done well given the limited time frame, but ADVENT progresses far too quickly for these small victories to be of any significance." He paused. "The First Order's sentiment has been popular among Mandalorians for years now, but only once they emerged have we seen how dangerously so it is." "Agent Branwen hasn't relayed any information back to us yet." Vahlen tried to defend the project. "We can't find any targets important enough to drastically change the outcome of the war." "I assure you, Qrow Branwen will come through and provide the information needed to begin hitting ADVENT in key locations. However, if the progress of this project remains as it is, the... families will shut it down." The longer the war went on, the more the Spokesman seemed to despise the families. "I trust you can convince them otherwise, Central Officer Bradford. Good luck." The screen promptly shut off, and Bradford leaned forward against the desk clenching his fists in anger. "Those idiots are going to throw this all away because we haven't won the war after a month." "Please, Central." Vahlen set a hand on his shoulder. "It will require risks, but we can speed up our progress against the ADVENT Coalition. The most obvious solution for now will require far more operations." Bradford was quiet. "How many spare Warframes do we have?" "Plenty." Vahlen reassured him. "Two remaining Prime-class models and at least ten Excalibur or other. We've already matched them to qualifying operatives." "Get them to training if they aren't already." Bradford ordered. "Target practice, equipment orientation, any of that." He sighed. "We're going to have to have at least an operation a day. Probably two." "The soldiers will do as they must. They know what they signed up for." The doctor began to carry out Bradford's orders on her tablet. "I know we can turn the war around." "Here's hoping." Bradford then stood up and began to hurry to the Operations Center. "I'm going to have to set up a raid right now. Organize Red Team and prep the Skyranger to launch in two hours." ADVENT Territories Qrow had long since left the town he'd been staying in, saving the extraction beacon carefully in his coat pocket. As soon as he'd discovered all he could, he was meant to go to a clearer area and activate the beacon for an X-COM Skyranger to pick him up. However, he'd managed to piece together that ADVENT progress had made the situation too urgent for him to discover "all he could". That was why he was in a hurry to get intel on this research base - it was the best lead he had, and if he took too long or went to get any more information, an attack on the base could be meaningless. So for three days now, he'd been moving as close as he could from town to town. Not long ago he'd passed completely into unpopulated territory, moving in the rockier and more vegetated areas so he wouldn't be spotted in the snow. "It had better be Christmastime on Helios by the time I get back." Qrow muttered to himself, having never bothered to memorize planetary calendars and if Mandalorian months were shorter. "Gotta fucking spend it here freezing my ass off instead of in a warm house with some booze." Every now and then Qrow would move to check above the rocks to see if he could spot anything. For hours now, he hadn't seen anything but snow and more mountains. "And somehow the best way to get information is to have me walking across the continent looking for bases." He grumbled. However, a few minutes later Qrow resignedly stood back up to check over the rocks again, and his heart raced. He pulled compact, electric binoculars from his coat and held them up to look through and see if he was right. To the untrained eye, nothing was there, but to his... "Gotcha." He smirked and lowered the binoculars. Category:Blog posts